Plone reaches Beta stage September 12, 2002 the Plone project reached beta and is now in feature freeze. We are welcoming all developers and end users to come and try out the new system that we have been working on developing over the past 16 months. It is based on the Python language, the Zope application server, and the Content Management Framework product suite. We have given quite a bit of attention to this release and feel that it is ready for anyone who is interested in dynamic websites. What is Plone? Plone is a software product that is focused on the end user experience for managing dynamic websites - <buzzword>Content Management System </buzzword>. Plone does the work you hate doing. It helps avoid: a.. What developers hate - we have spent considerable amounts of time on user experience combined with general look and feel. The CSS has been well thought out and in use for over a year. We have taken great pains into soliciting feedback from end users to try to create the lowest impedance possible when interacting with a content management system. As a developer, Plone makes it easy to have a consistent and good-looking interface. b.. What consultants hate - most consultants tends to be "customizers" of software. They simply do not have the time to delve deep into the language or shuffle data back and forth between the application and storage medium. Once they learn the system they merely can create new content types by a click of a button and create workflow definitions through the web! c.. What designers hate - we hide all of the technical plumbing and go out of our way to make our XHTML extensible and easy to understand. All of our PageTemplates are easily changed in Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG tools so that you do not have to be a technical person to change the design of a website. Since all of the style is housed in the CSS the designer can override our CSS or provide alternate styles to compliment the stock Plone stylesheets. d.. What bosses hate - software that is a pain to install and evaluate. Our Windows installer, made by Andy McKay of zopezen.org fame has written enables a "pointy clicky" experience from install to managing the Plone system. Plone "Just Works". They can use and test the system how they see fit, no geek explanations needed. The software is like any other software Product, Interwoven's Teamsite or Vignettes StoryServer - it requires some up front understanding of the technologies involved. We are trying to lower the bar as much as possible: Python is the simplest language, Zope complexities are hidden by the CMF/Plone Products, and third party products like Ben Saller's CMFTypes - promise a future of creating Plone content without having to touch HTML! You can find the plone website at http://plone.org/ cheers, ~runyaga, limi, plonista, tesdal and the rest of The Plone Team